"Hans Schuman, by Schwarze Mulle, | blessed meal - that is our grace after has taken two-thirds of the corn this sea- meat." son, and has fetched it himself, which, if I be allowed to say so, is the best bargain we have made for years."

"Indeed, my young friend has been tireless in his energies," chimed in Frau Alvsleben.

"Is the lamp in the Gartensaal ?" asked Frau Alvsleben.

Gertrud answered in the affirmative, and they all followed the lady of the house into a smaller room on the right of the salle-a-manger. It opened on the garden and had the same aspect as the one above, which had been assigned to Grace.

After listening intently to this conversation, hoping she might here and there catch the meaning of some word from its likeness to French or English, but in vain, Grace turned to Gertrud, and asked: "Do you ride much? You must have a charming country for riding here." "Yes, sometimes Frieda rides with the grandfather, but I not. It is rather too bold: I like best to stay at home; I can walk well, and go far enough in the gar-ioned chintz; and through the centre den and fields."

"But you are fond of riding, I hope," continued Grace to Frieda.

"Yes, yes, I like it immensely, and I am very brave; but the grandfather, he does not ride so often now, and Ulrich has taken away my pretty horse for himself, he liked it so much when he came last; so I have only a very young one, and it goes not nicely. But Wolff- my cousin Wolff-has promised to-towhat do you say? - make it go right."

"Break it in for you. That will be delightful! Then, perhaps, we can ride together. I don't much care what sort of a mount I have, so long as it can go. I do long for a gallop!"

"And you shall have it! Potatausend, you shall!" cried Count Costello, who caught the last words. "We must see about horses, mein lieber Sturm! My niece here can ride, I'll go bail."

"I doubt not, Herr Graf, but it is a difficult time; the

"Oh, we'll manage it," interrupted the count; "and I have a saddle for you, my darling an English saddle, with three pommels, faith! I picked it up at poor Von Dahlheim's sale, the last time I was at Vienna; and you wouldn't believe it, but my little Frieda prefers the old twocrutch concern she learned to ride on." "Ach Gott!" cried Frieda, "three are so uncomfortable."

While Grace was wondering why Frieda, the taller of the two sisters, was always called "little," Frau Alvsleben rose, and making her young cousin a curtsey, murmured something like "te" and "kite;" whereupon the count, also rising, took her hand in both of his, and said slowly, "Gesegnete Mahlzeit!

The walls of this apartment were painted to represent a trellis covered with vineleaves. The furniture was extremely simple, and painted white tables and side cabinets, or rather small presses, and rush-bottomed chairs, all were white. The curtains were of lace and old-fash

window Grace could see the moonlight sleeping on a terrace walk, raised a couple of steps above the garden, and furnished with sundry rustic seats. It led to the arbor at the end of the east wing, which she had noticed on her arrival that afternoon. Moreover, she perceived a piano and well-filled music-stand at one side of the room; of course her cousins were musicians art and music are the birthright of Germans.

Frau Alvsleben had placed herself on a large sofa, behind an oval table draped with a dull grey-brown cloth of some canvas-like material, the border of which was curiously worked, and over the centre a large napkin rather what we should call a tray-cloth of choicest damask, like brocaded white satin, was spread diamond-wise, a finely-shaped bronze vase standing in the middle.

While Grace was taking in these details, Herr Sturm was favoring her with queries and observations in his best English, having followed her to the window.

"You have had a var long journey, miss. I wonder you can stand upright!"

"Oh! we had a nice rest at Dresden. We slept there last night, but we were too late to see the gallery. The train from Cologne does not come in till twelve, and by the time we had had breakfast and dressed, it was nearly two."

"Ach so!" returned Herr Sturm, with an air of deep interest. He had scarcely understood a word she said, and took refuge in that invaluable exclamation which means everything and anything in the mouth of a German.

"You will find it not- not var animated lively at Dalbersdorf. No ball, or theatre, or concert," continued

Robert Peel; we have apologies for his | the martyr at least can appreciate. Then, economical heresies; we have apologies as we followed each other into the bigger for his Reform Bill; we have apologies world outside the college quadrangle, we for his foreign policy. That is the tone, carried our "testimony" along with us for instance, which his eulogist in the the gospel according to Dizzy, as they leading journal adopts. If all these apol- called it in those days. Most of us could ogies are necessary, it is difficult to un- do but little for the good cause, as we derstand what is meant by the universal esteemed it. An occasional leader in a sorrow and sympathy that have been ex- provincial journal, an occasional article pressed, not only in England, but over in a London monthly-that was about Europe. Treated in this spirit, the char- the limit of our resources; though one of acter of Disraeli loses its picturesque our number, to be sure, secured a wider identity any credible likeness of the influence and a larger audience; and I man in his habit as he lived becomes im- sometimes fancy that the change of tone possible what we get is a mere caput and feeling which, about 1858, was permortuum. I believe (and I have enjoyed ceptible in the Thunderer himself, is to some rather unusual facilities for forming be traced to the fact that a comrade, who an opinion) that there is, throughout that had been rashly admitted within the remarkable career, from the point of view temple, was then ministering on his of the man himself, an essential consis- altars. [Poor D-! He has gone over tency. I say, from his point of view; and to the majority in far from triumphal that is the main matter; it is not neces- fashion. By no fault of his own, it may sary to maintain that the opinions which be; for at best it is a hard life, and the he held were wise or just, but only that rewards of letters are even more uncerthey were sincere and his own. tain than those of politics or war. Spes et præmia in ambiguo; certa, funera et luctus.]

More than thirty years have passed since, at our university debating socie ties, the character of Disraeli formed one of the stock subjects of controversy. The speeches of the majority of the members reflected the tone of the outside world, which was then ferociously unfair. Mr. Disraeli was being assailed from ail sides; the Peelites were furious at the free lance who had driven them from office; the Whigs dimly recognized that a great and resolute will was marshalling the forces of their hereditary foes, and were bitter, in their icy way, against the plebeian chief who threatened their monopoly of power; the Tory squires eyed him suspiciously, and accorded him a fanguid and half-hearted support; the magnates of the newspaper press rudely ridiculed the political "adventurer" who had once wielded a pen. But at that time Mr. Disraeli was to us (there were not more than half a dozen of us, all told, if I remember rightly) what Thackeray was to Charlotte Brontë when to him, before the days of his fame, she dedicated "Jane Eyre;" we detected in him "an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries had yet recognized." The smaller the sect the warmer the zeal; and the devotion which, through many disastrous years, a small band of true believers offered to Mr. Disraeli may have gained in intensity because we were few. There is a perilous delight in flinging oneself, heart and soul, into a losing cause, which

As the

My own share in this new crusade was but slight, yet it brought out to the full, in all sorts of pleasant and gracious ways, the generous nature of the man. years wore on, the scattered papers took shape and consistency; and at last, during 1862, in what was called a "political romance," much that had been said by us in glorification of our leader in Fraser and elsewhere, was presented in concrete form to the public. 'Mowbray" was the real hero of this "political romance; and Mowbray was Disraeli under a thin disguise. Some of the pages devoted to him are yet, I think, vitally recognizable, - whereas the rest of it, after brief popularity, has long since fallen dead. Here are a few sentences, taken almost at random:

Here, then, they found one, who, though artificial speculations of a literary life, had yet conversant with abstract systems, and with the displayed an unrivalled capacity for the management of public affairs, and manifested incomparable energy, daring, and resolution, alike in the conception and in the achievement of a career. Associated with the genius which Mr. Mowbray manifested in the conduct of practical politics, two features were very noticeable, especially in that intensely con Scious and imitative age. Of all its public men, in the first place, he was the only one who relied implicitly upon himself. With cold precision he struck the blow that was, perhaps, to prove the turning-point of a diffi cult and protracted conflict; and, when he had

Your obliged servant,

B. DISRAELI.

done so, he was immediately content to hold I entirely sympathize with the object of the his peace. He had estimated the exact work, which gracefully develops a tone of value of what he had achieved, and he was thought and sentiment on the prevalence of content in silence to abide the issue. It was which the continued greatness of this country from this characteristic that to many he depends. seemed, as it were, to exert a direct and con. Believe me, scious control over his career, as though he were not so much the creature of circumstances as other men, and had more thoroughly recognized and mastered the necessities of his position. He had rehearsed his career; and, consequently, he played his part with infinite accuracy and precision. And it was from this, moreover, that he never publicly | manifested irritation, or annoyance, or vented his anger in the infelicitous language of passion. He was not moved, because he was thoroughly prepared. Nor, in the next place, was it possible to mistake the impersonal nature of the man. There was no part of his career which did not bear a direct and intimate connection with the rest; but, whenever it had answered the purpose it was immediately designed to serve, it became detached and separated from him, whenever it ceased to engage the active energies of his mind, he was able to criticise it with passionless historical impartiality, as an object out and apart from him, for which he was not in any wise solicitous or responsible.

...

There are one or two other letters to which I may here without impropriety refer, -one, especially, which throws a curiously direct light upon certain ambiguous incidents of his life. In an article in Fraser for May, 1864, the controversy between Lord Macaulay and Earl Stanhope (when Lord Mahon) had furnished the text for a discourse on the historical antecedents of our political parties.* A few extracts from the article are necessary to enable the reader to follow Mr. Disraeli's commentary:

The gage d'amour which Lord Mahon undertook to defend against all comers was a somewhat startling paradox. "I cannot but pause to observe," he said, "how much the course of a century has inverted the meaning of our party nicknames-how much a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne's reign a modern Whig." Mr. Macaulay lifted the glove. The modern Tories resembled the Whigs of Queen Anne's reign because the principles which these Whigs announced had been accepted by

good; and it would have been better still if
myself. Your discussion of it was, I thought, very

Originally published in Fraser's Maga zine during 1862, the papers were collected towards the end of the year into a presentable volume, to which a preface was prefixed. Therein it was intimated by the author that the age of dedications, Lord Stanhope afterwards pointed out to the writer like the age of chivalry, had departed. that he had not followed the controversy to its close. "Had these pretty solemnities," it went "Allow me also to assure you," he wrote, on March on, "been still in fashion, I should have 18, 1868, "of the gratification with which a year or two since I read the Campaigner at Home.' I was only ventured to inscribe a political story to sorry that you had omitted from that interesting series Mr. Disraeli; not merely because loyalty of chapters the one which I had read as an article in to one's leader is the first and most neg-parties, the controversy carried on, now thirty-five years Fraser as to the transmutation of the Whig and Tory lected of political virtues; not merely be- ago, between my lamented friend Lord Macaulay and cause that leader is to us in England what Tully was to his countrymen in Rome optimus omnium patronus—but because I recognize in him, when dealing with social and religious controversies, a breadth of aim and generosity of sentiment which I do not find in his opponents, and which comprise the best and most sterling elements of Liberalism." We were informed at the time that Mr. Disraeli was quite pleased with the devotional attitude which the book and the preface together expressed; and, certainly, in the graceful little note which accepted the dedication (if it was a dedication) there is no hint that any fault was found with the portrait that had been limned:

DEAR SIR,

Torquay, Dec. 28, 1862.

you had followed it to its final close. For, if you will now refer to Lord Macaulay's second article on Lord Chatham, and since collected in his Essays,' you will find from as published in the Edinburgh Review, October, 1841, the opening passages-enforced by a most ingenious Macaulay's opinion of the point at issue had come to illustration from Dante's 'Malebolge'. -that Lord be very nearly the same as mine. I ask pardon for having so long detained you."

I had forgotten, at the moment when the text was written, that the article of May, 1864, was one of the "Campaigner at Home" series- a series which, when republished, elicited another letter from Mr. Disraeli, in which there is a pleasant glimpse of life at Hughenden:"Hughenden Manor, July 31, 1865.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I am obliged to address you in your mask, for I cannot put my hand upon your letter, and therefore have lost your direction.

Mrs. Disraeli is reading your 'Campaigner at Home,' and gave me last evening a most charming description

of it.

"We brought it with us into the country. I was not surprised at her account, for I am well aware of the

I am honored and I am gratified by the dedi- graceful fancies of your picturesque pen.

cation of "Thalatta."

"Yours very faithfully,
"B. DISRAELI."

I need not remind you that Parliamentary Reform was a living question with the Tories for the quarter of a century, at least, that followed the Revolution of 1688. Not only Sir William Wyndham and his friends were in favor of annual parliaments and universal suffrage, but Sir John Hinde Cotton even advocated the ballot. These were desperate remedies against Whig supremacy. It appeared to me in 1832 that the Reform Act was another 1688, and that influenced my conduct when I entered public life. I don't say this to vindicate my course, but to explain it.

the Tories. The Whig had remained consist- | this morning. I read your criticisms always ent; the Tory had come over to the enemy. with interest, because they are discriminative, It may be questioned whether the retort, and are founded on knowledge and thought. though supported by Macaulay's fluent and These qualities are rarer in the present day facile logic, and adorned with a wealth of pic-than the world imagines. Everybody writes torial illustration, is entirely satisfactory. Is in a hurry, and the past seems quite obliterated it fair to assume that a party must be incon- from public memory. sistent because it adopts a policy which, fifty years before, it had opposed? During these fifty years the world has altered. Truth, in a political sense, is a relative term. The science of politics is not one of the exact sciences. Lord Bolingbroke correctly described the duty of a practical statesman when he said to Sir William Windham, "It is as much a mistake to depend upon that which is true, but impracticable at a certain time, as to depend on that which is neither true nor practicable at any time." In this view the Tory who votes against an extension of the franchise during one century, and who votes in favor of its extension during the next, may be acting not only with sagacity but with consistency. The Whigs did not, as a matter of fact, propose to reform the constituencies during the first half of the eighteenth century. Reform, as we understand it, was an unfamiliar idea to Somers and to Walpole. There were men of that generation who desired to subvert the constitution, and there were men prepared to defend it in its integrity; but there was no middle party. The notion of constitutional reconstruction was the growth of a later age.

Moreover, it is positively incorrect to affirm that during the early part of the eighteenth century the Whigs presented an advanced and the Tories a stationary policy. "The absolute position of the parties," Lord Macaulay remarked, "has been altered; the relative position remains the same." The proposition is directly at variance with the fact. As matter of fact, the parties had changed places. The order of nature had been reversed. The tail went first; the head followed. And the anomaly is easily explained. The Tories wanted power; the Whigs possessed it. The Whigs had attacked the prerogative when it was directed against themselves, but the prerogative occasioned them no uneasiness when a Whig minister was in office. Impelled by similar motives, the Tories, when an unfriendly family of Dutchmen occupied the throne, were willing to impose limitations on that kingly authority which, as an ordinance of God, had once been vehemently defended by them. So, also, with regard to the question of electoral reform. As long as the Whigs corrupted the electoral bodies, the Tories clamored for change; while the Whigs did not become reformers until the electoral bodies, under the second Pitt, went over by tens and by fifties to

the Tories."

So, also, I looked then- -as I look nowto a reconciliation between the Tory party and the Roman Catholic subjects of the queen. This led, thirty years ago, and more, to the O'Connell affair, but I have never relinquished my purpose; and have now, I hope, nearly accomplished it.

If the Tory party is not a national party, it is nothing.

Pardon this egotism, which I trust, however,
is not my wont, and believe me,
Dear sir, with respect,
Faithfully yours,
B. DISRAELI.